A space station, a giant robot on wheels, pyrotechnics, trapeze artists...
Muse's show at the Emirates Stadium was certainly one to remember, writes James
Hall.

Last Monday night, petrified residents of Coventry saw flames licking high above the city’s vast Ricoh Stadium. They took to the internet to tell the world that their beloved football ground was on fire.

The apparent inferno forced the stadium’s owners to rush out a statement. Don’t panic, they said, it’s not a fire, it’s just Muse rehearsing the pyrotechnics for their world tour.

The 34-date trek opened at the Ricoh last Wednesday and landed in Arsenal’s Emirates Stadium on Saturday for a two-night run.

The word "landed" is appropriate. The stage set resembles a colossal space station which is supplemented over the two hours-plus show by a robot on wheels, a ginormous floating light bulb, trapeze artists, and CGI images of David Cameron and Angela Merkel performing the running man dance. The terrifying Spitfire Liquid Flame system that so upset the good people of Coventry is one of the saner things on stage. It’s all bonkers and suits the Devon trio’s brand of bombastic space rock down to the ground.

Stadium shows tend to be tame affairs these days, but not here. The site of 60,000 people leaping as one to the astonishing Knights of Cydonia or Time is Running Out must be the most exciting thing that has happened in the Emirates all season. And the audience is a refreshing mix of young and old: a brutal "circle pit" in front of the stage – imagine a whirlpool of people moshing in a vortex – is countered by families with young children singing for all they’re worth a little further back. Crystal-clear sound helps, as does the slick playing of a band six albums into their career, brilliantly underpinned by Chris Wolstenholme’s shuddering bass.

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But while the show encompasses all the positives of a modern Big Rock Show, it also includes too many of the negatives.

Some of the imagery is hilariously dated. At one point an actress dressed as a 1980s secretary (all big glasses and power suits) runs across the stage, drinks petrol from a giant pump and... dies. Meanwhile a "banker" runs through the crowd flinging money into the air. He also dies. Flickering share prices cover the stage. The band is clearly trying to make a point about how big business and complex financial derivatives almost bankrupted the world.

However the anti-capitalist shtick is all a bit too much, particularly when a pint of beer costs £6.50 and comes in a Muse-branded cup. Punters can claim £2 back if they return the cup after the show. It is the kind of ingenious financial engineering that got us into this mess in the first place.